How to Improve Your Joomla Contact Form

One question we frequently get is about the Joomla contact form. Some people think its too plain and want to redesign it or add features. Some people get too much spam.

This week we'll walk you through how to improve your contacts component, including adding new fields and the anti-SPAM Captha system to your contact forms.

We're going to use a component called QContacts. Here's how you do it:

1. Download the QContacts component from Latenight-coding.com.
2. In the administration area of your Joomla site, go to Extensions >> Install / Uninstall and upload the file to install.
3. If you already have contact categories and contacts set up, you can import them: In the administration area of your Joomla site, go to Components >> QContacts >> Tools and click on Execture in the 'Import Contacts' to import your contact categories and contacts.
4. Go to Menus >> Main Menu, click New and you can choose QContacts as an option to start seting up links to your contacts.

The real power of QContacts can be found by going to Components >> QContacts >> Contacts and clicking on the "Parameters" button in the top-right. You can choose to add an anti-SPAM Captcha system or to redesign your form in all sorts of ways.

Taking QContacts Further

Be sure to also download the Search Plugin from the Latenight-coding site to allow searching of your contacts. Once downloaded you will install the plugin just as you did the component in step 2 above.

The creator of the component also offers complete documentation which you may find very helpful.

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